McKesson CEO makes 943 times average workers' pay, wants Social Security cut

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhExORV0ktOQEzzcIDryx2MLi2iJedIvpapryVQUiZN9VMJPd5seDXzUF2_EOd_aHD6PphRwXzv2wED6hD7s7483U8fwoE7YfqvvghvwbAFYCyhbHeOQ4UtRHiYKFb6PfTS5e1sG3wUd0ah/s1600/Hammergren.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhExORV0ktOQEzzcIDryx2MLi2iJedIvpapryVQUiZN9VMJPd5seDXzUF2_EOd_aHD6PphRwXzv2wED6hD7s7483U8fwoE7YfqvvghvwbAFYCyhbHeOQ4UtRHiYKFb6PfTS5e1sG3wUd0ah/s320/Hammergren.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yay! I make 943 times what the average <br />worker makes at McKesson!</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/09/McKesson-CEO-jaw-dropping-pay.html" rel="nofollow">McKesson</a>, the pharmaceutical distribution giant, pays its CEO John Hammergren 943 times what the average McKesson worker makes.<br /><br />That puts <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKesson_Corporation" rel="nofollow">McKesson</a> right behind <a href="https://www.facebook.com/OURWMT?fref=ts" rel="nofollow">Walmar</a>t when it comes to CEO plundering of a company and abuse of employees.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/15/walmart-retirement-pension_n_4283341.html" rel="nofollow">Walmart CEO Mike Duke makes 6,132 times</a> what the average Walmart worker earns, according to the Huffington Post. Walmart claims it cares for its workers, but it has a funny way of showing it: A <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/11/walmart-holding-food-drive-for-its-own-employees.html" rel="nofollow">Walmart store in Ohio is running a Thanksgiving food drive for its own employees </a>who are so underpaid they need charitable donations to have a holiday dinner. Yum, canned peas!<br /><br />Hammergren empathizes with his employees the same way Duke does. In <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/07/teamsters-protest-mckesson-retaliation.html" rel="nofollow">McKesson's Lakeland, Fla., warehouse, workers don't earn enough to afford health insurance</a>. The workers voted to join the <a href="http://teamster.org/" rel="nofollow">Teamsters</a>, and now the company is threatening and harassing them in a by-the-book union-busting effort. <br /><br />Hammergren's signal achievement at <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/08/McKesson-shareholders-reject-CEO-pay.html" rel="nofollow">McKesson was racking up nearly $1 billion in fines for price-fixing and Medicaid fraud</a>. Now he claims he's concerned about government debt (he's not) and wants to lower it. Presumably he wasn't too worried about contributing to the government debt while he was looting the Treasury.<br /><br />Hammergren belongs to that uniquely loathsome group, <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/01/fix-debt-is-full-of-crap.html" rel="nofollow">Fix the Debt</a>, which wants to cut your Social Security. <a href="http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/platinum_plated_pensions" rel="nofollow">The Institute for Policy Studies</a> found three of the Fix the Debt CEOs who want to impoverish millions of retirees have pensions of more than $100 million each. Hammergren  has the largest retirement fortune of the three: $144.3 million.<br /><br />Another group aiming to throw millions into poverty, the Business Roundtable, is made up of CEOs whose retirement savings are 1,200 times bigger than the average worker's.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/177251/ceos-massive-retirement-fortunes-push-social-security-cuts#" rel="nofollow">The Nation</a> recently exposed the shocking cruelty of Fix the Debt and the Business Roundtable. Reports The Nation:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">These CEOs aren’t just trying to short the average American retiree; they’re throwing their own under the bus. While raising alarm about the federal debt, Business Roundtable CEOs have run up massive deficits in their employees’ pension funds. According to the report, ten companies led by members of Business Roundtable have shortfalls in their employee pension funds of between $4.9 and $22.6 billion. The largest of those belongs to General Electric, run by Business Roundtable and Fix the Debt member Jeffrey Immelt, the prospective beneficiary of a $59.3 million retirement fund. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">GE stopped offering traditional pension plans for new employees in 2011, forcing workers to switch to 401(k) plans. Many other companies have shifted the burden of retirement savings to their employees in this way in recent years, and that’s been a significant driver of the retirement crisis. Just 18 percent of workers can expect traditional pensions today, compared with 38 percent in 1985. Instead of getting a fixed check, retirees are at the mercy of the market—making the assurance of Social Security benefits even more essential.</blockquote>How did we ever let this happen?<br /><br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"> </blockquote><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />

CEO Pay Hammergren low-wage workers McKesson walmart McKesson CEO makes 943 times average workers' pay, wants Social Security cut

Yay! I make 943 times what the average worker makes at McKesson!McKesson, the pharmaceutical distribution giant, pays its CEO John Hammergren 943 times what the average McKesson worker makes.That puts McKesson right behind Walmart when it comes to CE…

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Study: Modern managers mimic slave owners

A <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University" rel="nofollow">Harvard</a> historian discovered what many of us suspected: Today's corporations use many of the same management techniques plantation owners used on their slaves.<br /><br />The legacy of slavery can be seen in aloof corporate managers (<a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/10/hammergrens-high-pay-explains-workers-low-pay.html" rel="nofollow">McKesson's CEO John Hammergren</a>, for example.) They see workers as interchangeable units of production instead of human beings. They collect data on their work force, move workers around, demand speed-ups and liberally mete out punishment.<br /><br />That, at least, is what <a href="http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7182.html" rel="nofollow">Prof. Caitlin C. Rosenthal</a> discovered, according to a story, titled "The Messy Link Between Slave Owners And Modern Management," in a pro-business magazine<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2013/01/16/the-messy-link-between-slave-owners-and-modern-management/" rel="nofollow"> Forbes</a>. Forbes' take on the historian's research was that it could be seen as a justification for slavery. Leave it to a business magazine to miss the point that it's an indictment of modern corporate management. <br /><br />Here's what Rosenthal found when she set out to investigate the history of modern business practices:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Slave owners were able to collect data on their workforce in ways that other business owners couldn’t because they had complete control over their workers. They didn’t have to worry about turnover or recruiting new workers, and they could experiment with different tactics—moving workers around and demanding higher levels of output, even monitoring what they ate and how long new mothers breastfed their babies. And the slaves had no recourse... </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Tracking this information allowed planters to determine how far they could push their workers to get the most profit. Using the account books, slave owners could see how many pounds of cotton each slave picked and compare it to their output from previous years—and then create minimum picking requirements based on these calculations. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">This led owners to experiment with ways of increasing the pace of labor, Rosenthal explains, such as holding contests with small cash prizes for those who picked the most cotton, and then requiring the winners to pick that much cotton from there on out. Slave narratives describe how others used the data to calculate punishment, meting out whippings according to how many pounds each picker fell short. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Similar incentive plans reappeared in early twentieth-century factories, with managers dangling the promise of cash rewards if their workers reached certain production levels. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Planters also used group incentives to encourage honesty, doling out a barrel of corn to each hand with the caveat that if anything was stolen from the farm and no one turned in the thief, double the value of that corn would be deducted from each of their Christmas awards. Collective penalties would later be adopted by salesmen and companies like Singer Sewing Company to encourage workers to police one another.</blockquote>Weove noted in the past that technology is allowing corporations to bring <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/02/tesco-target-treat-workers-like.html" rel="nofollow">employee surveillance to a new level</a>. At the British grocery chain Tesco, warehouse workers have to wear armbands so their bosses can monitor how hard they're working.<br /><br />Rosenthal said her research led to a question:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">If today we are using management techniques that were also used on slave plantations, how much more careful do we need to be? How much more do we need to think about our responsibility to people?</blockquote>One commenter put it more succinctly:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Slavery never ended, it just shifted to a different form.</blockquote>Actually, it hasn't shifted to a different form in a lot of places. There are 30 million slaves in the world. Click <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/17/this-map-shows-where-the-worlds-30-million-slaves-live-there-are-60000-in-the-u-s/" rel="nofollow">here</a> to see where they are.

ceo McKesson slavery Study: Modern managers mimic slave owners

A Harvard historian discovered what many of us suspected: Today's corporations use many of the same management techniques plantation owners used on their slaves.The legacy of slavery can be seen in aloof corporate managers (McKesson's CEO John Hammer…

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Teamsters want gap exposed between worker, CEO pay

Teamsters know firsthand what happens to workers when a CEO is allowed to loot his company: The workers get less when the CEO gets more.<br /><br />In the case of McKesson Corp., <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/09/McKesson-CEO-jaw-dropping-pay.html" rel="nofollow">CEO John Hammergren was planning on taking home $51.7 million</a>. Here's what he did to deserve that enormous compensation: preside over a company that paid the government $200 million in fines last year to settle charges for Medicaid fraud and price fixing. Workers who voted to become <a href="http://www.teamster.org/content/teamsters-protest-mckessons-worker-abuse-and-executive-pay-shareholder-meeting" rel="nofollow">Teamsters, meanwhile, can't afford healthcare and are facing McKesson's high-priced union busters</a>.<br /><br />Shareholders knew about the disparity and <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/08/McKesson-shareholders-reject-CEO-pay.html" rel="nofollow">voted against McKesson's lavish pay</a> at the July shareholder meeting.<br /><br />Exposing the gross inequality between CEOs and workers <i>can</i> shame companies into paying them less. That's why the Teamsters came out in support of an SEC proposal to require companies reveal the disparity between CEO pay and worker pay.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.teamster.org/sites/teamster.org/files/IBT_Hall_Letter_to_SEC_on_pay_ratio_disclosure_102013.pdf" rel="nofollow">Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Ken Hall sent a letter</a> to the SEC endorsing its proposal on the CEO-to-worker pay ratio. According to <a href="http://teamster.org/">teamster.org</a>,<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The International Brotherhood of Teamsters supports the SEC’s proposal to require corporations to reveal the difference between the pay of their CEO and their average workers. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">The SEC rule is required by the Dodd-Frank Act, which became law more than three years ago. Once the rule is written, investors such as Teamster benefit funds will have:<br /><ul><li>a better way to assess the board of directors who set executive pay;</li><li>a correlation between compensation practices throughout companies and morale and productivity; and,</li><li>an important way to measure CEO pay for advisory proxy votes on executive compensation plans.</li></ul>Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Ken Hall said the Teamsters’ perspective is important as long-term investors protecting the retirement security of hundreds of thousands of American workers.<br />“The rule will help solve the problem of excessive CEO pay, which harms our funds’ investments, the sustainability of U.S. corporations and the employment and retirement security of Teamster members,” Hall said.</blockquote>We'll keep you posted on the SEC's progress in laying down the rule. Because you know those big corporations don't like it one little bit.

CEO Pay McKesson Teamsters want gap exposed between worker, CEO pay

Teamsters know firsthand what happens to workers when a CEO is allowed to loot his company: The workers get less when the CEO gets more.In the case of McKesson Corp., CEO John Hammergren was planning on taking home $51.7 million. Here's what he did t…

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Hammergren's high pay may explain workers' low pay

At last an explanation for how<a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/09/McKesson-CEO-jaw-dropping-pay.html" rel="nofollow"> McKesson's CEO John Hammergren</a> can rake in $51.7 million and pay workers so little they can't afford health care and pension contributions. <br /><br />He just doesn't care.<br /><br />A recent New York Times op-ed, <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/rich-people-just-care-less/?_r=0" rel="nofollow">Rich People Just Care Less</a>, describes how people with greater power ignore people with less power:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Turning a blind eye. Giving someone the cold shoulder. Looking down on people. Seeing right through them.</blockquote>The Times cites a growing body of research proving the phenomenon.<br /><br />The Times op-ed is making a point about politics. The author, Daniel Goleman, argues the Republican Party is more sensitive to the rich and powerful (though Democrats are certainly guilty too). He believes the GOP dismisses the truth about the ordinary people they rarely interact with. That empathy gap allows them to do things like <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/28/the-houses-food-stamps-cuts-arent-just-cruel-theyre-dumb/" rel="nofollow">cutting food stamps</a>.<br /><br />It may also explain why Hammergren can care so little about his own employees.

CEO Pay food stamps inequality McKesson Hammergren's high pay may explain workers' low pay

At last an explanation for how McKesson's CEO John Hammergren can rake in $51.7 million and pay workers so little they can't afford health care and pension contributions. He just doesn't care.A recent New York Times op-ed, Rich People Just Care Less,…

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McKesson workers more stressed than overpaid CEO

<a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/09/McKesson-CEO-jaw-dropping-pay.html" rel="nofollow">John Hammergren might think he's worth the $51.7 million</a> he takes home from McKesson, the health care company he heads. After all, he puts up with a lot of stress.<br /><br />He'd be wrong.<br /><br />Keith Payne in <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-myth-of-executive-str&page=3" rel="nofollow">Scientific American</a> recently described the kind of stress CEOs like Hammergren put up with:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">...one CEO ... had to drag himself out of bed each morning and muster his game face. It would be a long day of telling other people what to do. It got so bad ... he had no choice but to take a year off work to sail across the Atlantic Ocean with his family.</blockquote>Poor thing!<br /><br />But it turns out it isn't the people at the top who experience the most stress. It's actually the people at the bottom -- like the <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/08/uninn-investors-demand-McKesson-resignation.html" rel="nofollow">McKesson workers who don't take home enough money to afford health care</a>.<br /><br />A recent study of people taking executive courses at Harvard's business school divided the group into leaders and non-leaders. The conclusion?<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">On both surveys of anxiety and biological measures of cortisol, the leaders showed substantially lower levels of stress than the non-leaders. The results were the same in both business and the military. Leadership has its privileges.</blockquote>Another study in the '60s showed British civil servants had more stress-related health problems the lower down on the rung they were.<br /><br />Concludes the author,<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The professional class may be stressed in their way. But the powerless are stressed in the way that kills. </blockquote><br />

executive compensation McKesson McKesson workers more stressed than overpaid CEO

John Hammergren might think he's worth the $51.7 million he takes home from McKesson, the health care company he heads. After all, he puts up with a lot of stress.He'd be wrong.Keith Payne in Scientific American recently described the kind of stress …

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SEC, finally, does something about insane CEO pay

You know something's out of whack when <a href="https://teamster.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/09/McKesson-CEO-jaw-dropping-pay.html">McKesson CEO John Hammergren rakes in $51.7 million </a>even though the company has paid nearly a $1 billion to settle Medicaid and other fraud claims on his watch. While he’s entitled to a $159 million pension, other McKesson workers can’t even afford to participate in their 401 (k) or buy into the company’s healthcare plan.<br /><br />On $13 an hour, Randolph Santiago, a material handler at McKesson's Lakeland, Fla., facility, can't come up with $160 a month for individual health coverage, let alone the higher cost of a family plan. His wife is on SSI after being diagnosed with clinical depression. His two daughters need braces, but at $8,500, they're beyond him.<br /><br />Hammergren makes 847 times the average worker at McKesson -- if you include his stock options and pension. That's so much that <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/09/McKesson-CEO-jaw-dropping-pay.html" rel="nofollow">he receives an extra $17,000 for a financial planner</a> just to count all his money.<br /><br />It's time to do something about the growing gap between the one percenters at the top of corporations and the 99 percent who work for them. Fortunately, the Securities and Exchange Commission is doing something.<br /><br />The <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/18/us-usa-sec-ceopay-munis-idUSBRE98H0EX20130918" rel="nofollow">SEC today proposed a rule</a> requiring corporations to reveal the ratio between their CEO and median worker compensation. As one commissioner complained, the reason for doing it is to shame CEOs. (He thinks there's something wrong with that.)<br /><br />Congress passed a law in July 2010 that requires companies to disclose the gap between CEO and worker pay. Expect corporations to fight back. It’s not just the general public who’s fed up, investors care too. In fact, Hammergren’s compensation package received a stunning 78 percent rejection by shareholders at McKesson’s annual meeting this year.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.teamster.org/content/teamsters-praise-sec-proposed-rule-corporate-pay" rel="nofollow">Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa, in a statement, praised</a> the SEC:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">CEO pay keeps going up and worker pay keeps going down. This is a dirty secret that corporate CEOs don’t want exposed, and the SEC did the right thing by proposing this rule.</blockquote>The <a href="https://teamster.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.ips-dc.org/">Institute for Policy Studies</a> reports:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Expert observers of the corporate compensation scene have been calling for action around CEO-worker pay ratios ever since Peter Drucker, the founder of modern management science, called for a 25-to-1 ratio between top management and worker pay in <a href="https://teamster.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/WSJ_Drucker_execpay.pdf">a 1977 Wall Street Journal op-ed</a>.<br /><br />Back at that time pay ratios of 50- and 100-to-1 struck the American public — and experts like Drucker — as totally unjustifiable. Ratios that wide, Drucker wrote, endanger the great business achievement of the 20th century, “the steady narrowing of the income gap between the ‘big boss’ and the ‘working man.'”<br /><br />That achievement has now gone completely by the boards. Over recent decades, the CEO-worker pay gap has soared. Major corporate CEOs last year took in <a href="https://teamster.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.aflcio.org/Corporate-Watch/CEO-Pay-and-You">354 times more</a> compensation than average American workers, double the gap in the early 1990s. A Bloomberg News survey this past spring found that CEOs at eight major U.S. corporations <a href="https://teamster.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://go.bloomberg.com/multimedia/ceo-pay-ratio/">were making over 1,000 times</a> the average pay of workers in their industry.</blockquote>The IPS says pay ratio disclosure could be a game-changer in the struggle against insane executive compensation.<br /><br />Let's hope.<br /><br />

CEO Pay McKesson SEC SEC, finally, does something about insane CEO pay

You know something's out of whack when McKesson CEO John Hammergren rakes in $51.7 million even though the company has paid nearly a $1 billion to settle Medicaid and other fraud claims on his watch. While he’s entitled to a $159 million pension, o…

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Jaw-dropping pay package for McKesson's CEO

John Hammergren makes so much money that his company, McKesson, pays him an extra <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/02/he-s-one-of-the-nation-s-highest-paid-ceos-and-you-ve-never-heard-of-him.html" rel="nofollow">$17,000 for a financial planner</a> to count it all.<br /><br />McKesson workers don't earn enough to afford health care.<br /><br />Hammergren, McKesson's CEO, will be paid $51.7 million, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ceos-who-get-paid-much-more-than-workers-2013-3?op=1" rel="nofollow">over 847 times what the average worker at his company makes</a>. And even <a href="http://www.cwhonors.org/archives/histories/Hammergren.pdf">he admitted that McKesson workers can’t afford the essentials</a>: <br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">What’s great about the position of McKesson today as the world’s largest health care services company, our footprint is everywhere. We have systems in probably 50 or 60 percent of the hospitals in America. We have over a third of the pharmacies in America and we have systems in probably 90 percent of the payers in America.<br /><br />At the same time we can have a significant impact on the cost of providing the care. In fact, we have McKesson employees who can’t even afford… the 20 percent co-pay that’s required to have our insurance inside of McKesson. Those people should be afforded high quality health care, and should be provided it in a way that is cost effective.</blockquote>That interview was from 2004. Eight years later, the largest healthcare company in the country still doesn’t provide an affordable healthcare plan for employees. Exactly nothing has changed. Well, except the size of Hammergren’s pension. (Hint: <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-06/jumbo-severance-packages-for-top-ceos-are-growing">it definitely didn’t go down</a>). <br /><br />And it’s not because his company is doing great either. <br /><br />McKesson settled out of court <a href="http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/April/12-civ-539.html">for almost $200 million last year after being prosecuted for Medicaid fraud</a> by the Department of Justice. <br /><br />McKesson made $1.2 billion in 2011. Hammergren took 11 percent of that total home. <br /><br />The worst part is that he isn’t alone.<br /><div><br /><div><a href="http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/executive-excess-2013">Yet another study</a> shows the pay gap between the people who actually do the company’s work and the CEOs who collect the profit.<br /><br />Last year, <a href="http://www.aflcio.org/Corporate-Watch/CEO-Pay-and-You/CEO-to-Worker-Pay-Gap-in-the-United-States">the average CEO was paid 354 times as much as the average worker</a>. They now make 873 percent more than they were paid (including long-term incentives and other perks) in 1978.<br /><br />Worker pay <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-2012-extraordinarily-high/">increased 5.4 percent</a> during the same period.<br /><br />Being a highly paid CEO has no basis in actual talent. Over a third of the CEOs ranked as the top 25 well paid during the last 20 years <a href="http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/executive-excess-2013">have been fired, fined or settled claims of company fraud or whose company received bailout money in 2008</a>. </div></div>

CEO Pay McKesson Jaw-dropping pay package for McKesson's CEO

John Hammergren makes so much money that his company, McKesson, pays him an extra $17,000 for a financial planner to count it all.McKesson workers don't earn enough to afford health care.Hammergren, McKesson's CEO, will be paid $51.7 million, over 84…

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Union investors demand resignation of McKesson compensation committee chairman

<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/hhiOEokyDI8" width="420"></iframe><br /><br />A union investment group affiliated with the Teamsters says the $159 million pension given to McKesson’s CEO is cause for the compensation committee chairman to resign.<br /><br />The Teamsters represent 1,500 McKesson warehouse workers across the U.S. and in Canada. But in Lakeland, Fla., where many McKesson distribution workers cannot afford to pay for their health insurance or contribute to their 401(k) plan, McKesson has hired union-busting firms and retaliated against workers who support the union. After nearly two years as Teamsters, the workers are still fighting for a fair first contract. <br /><br />Now, the Change to Win Investment Group is demanding the resignation of McKesson director and compensation committee chairman Alton Irby. It also asked for the renegotiation and reduction of CEO John Hammergren’s $159 million pension benefit “as part of a comprehensive overhaul of the company’s compensation structure.” <br /><br />Steve Vairma, Teamsters international vice president, said Hammergren’s compensation is an insult to the company’s front-line workers. <br /><br />“Hammergren’s staggering $159 million pension and $50 million/year total compensation is a slap in the face to so many McKesson workers who have no pension at all and cannot even afford to contribute to their 401 (k) plan or pay for health care coverage for their families,” said Vairma, who is also director of the IBT Warehouse division, which represents some 1,500 McKesson workers across the U.S. and Canada. <br /><br />Chris Rauber at the <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/07/mckesson-shareholders-re-elect-all.html" rel="nofollow">San Francisco Business Times</a> has the story about CtW Investment Group’s demands:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Both demands were made in an Aug. 5 letter from CtW's Executive Director <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/search/results?q=Dieter%20Waizenegger" rel="nofollow">Dieter Waizenegger</a> to <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/search/results?q=Edward%20Mueller" rel="nofollow">Edward Mueller</a>, McKesson's lead independent director, a role created after an earlier round of pressure on the San Francisco-based drug distribution and health care IT giant. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/07/mckesson-shareholders-re-elect-all.html" rel="nofollow">CtW said last week's vote</a> by shareholders at McKesson's annual meeting showed that "shareholders rejected the board's work in extraordinarily strong numbers." It said 78 percent voted against management's position on executive pay, 53 percent supported strengthening the company's policies to "clawback" executive compensation in the wake of executive misdeeds, and 40 percent voted against Irby's re-election to the board. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Last week, <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/search/results?q=Scott%20Zdrazil" rel="nofollow">Scott Zdrazil</a>, director of corporate governance for <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/profiles/company/us/dc/washington/amalgamated_bank/3290173" rel="nofollow">Amalgamated Bank</a>, a union-owned institution that oversees a fund that owns a significant chunk of McKesson stock, said the July 31 shareholders' vote "may be the first clawback proposal to ever receive majority support" from a company's investors. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">The Aug. 5 letter to McKesson's lead independent director said Hammergren's huge pension was the driving force behind what CtW called "a clear referendum" last week against flaws in executive compensation policies at the company, adding that the benefit "provides no clear alignment with the interests of shareholders."</blockquote>

CEO Pay McKesson Union investors demand resignation of McKesson compensation committee chairman

A union investment group affiliated with the Teamsters says the $159 million pension given to McKesson’s CEO is cause for the compensation committee chairman to resign.The Teamsters represent 1,500 McKesson warehouse workers across the U.S. and in Ca…

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Teamsters protest retaliation at McKesson today

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ1JqCMBO3C44AA57mxPdgxyvoOQYHt9HOSY_pOMvt9V_ugWOUqP-Fus30ta4IOdwOOBBt_hguy-8IfigklPLR6FdZXJNp1DGteVvMZk1lxvMKPBBaK0fvNhGw6DYRV3w3I-hy00qbGzd-/s1600/Teamsters+protest+McKesson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ1JqCMBO3C44AA57mxPdgxyvoOQYHt9HOSY_pOMvt9V_ugWOUqP-Fus30ta4IOdwOOBBt_hguy-8IfigklPLR6FdZXJNp1DGteVvMZk1lxvMKPBBaK0fvNhGw6DYRV3w3I-hy00qbGzd-/s400/Teamsters+protest+McKesson.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Teamsters protest McKesson's retaliation against Florida warehouse workers. </td></tr></tbody></table><div class="tr_bq">The Teamsters protest of McKesson Corp.'s retaliation against its Lakeland, Fla., warehouse workers is taking place right now during the company's annual shareholder meeting in San Francisco.<br /><br />Though McKesson employees voted for Teamster representation more than a year ago, the company still will not agree to a first contract that provides decent wages and affordable health care.</div><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.890625px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.890625px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.890625px;">McKesson, the largest pharmaceutical distributor in North America hired a union-busting law firm and has threatened and intimidated the workers rather than agree to a contract.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.890625px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.890625px;">CEO John Hammergren, meanwhile, is looting the company treasury with $131 million in compensation last year -- after McKesson paid nearly $1 billion to settle claims that it stole from taxpayers and customers through price-fixing. </span><br /><br />The Teamsters protest against retaliation at McKesson is just the latest manifestation of labor unrest that's sweeping the country. Today hundreds of fast-food workers in Chicago and Detroit walked off the job, following similar actions in New York, St. Louis and Kansas City. Teamsters are striking Gold Cross Ambulance in El Centro., Calif., to protest low wages and dangerous working conditions. The protests, strikes and rallies are fueled by anger by CEO looting. They are all aimed at the same thing: empowering workers to stand together and fight for fair treatment and living wages.<br /><br />McKesson faces not just the Teamsters protest. Investors at today's meeting are challenging the election of two directors and demanding changes to the company's compensation policy.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/edsilverman/2013/07/30/mckesson-fights-big-investors-over-a-clawback-policy/">Forbes</a> reports today:<br /><blockquote>Should one of the largest drug wholesalers have a clawback policy for executives? Two institutional investors believe the notion is overdue for McKesson MCK +0.35%, since the wholesaler has paid more than $1 billion in recent years to resolve regulatory and other legal disputes without publicly disclosing any clawback steps. Meanwhile, McKesson ceo John Hammergren received $131 million in compensation last year. </blockquote><blockquote>And so, the LongView Funds run by Amalgamated Bank and the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust are pushing a proposal to be voted on at the McKesson annual shareholder meeting tomorrow. As they see it, the move will “increase transparency, encourage executive pay-for-performance and discourage senior executives from engaging in behavior that could cause significant financial harm to the company.” </blockquote><blockquote>What do they want? The investors argue that the current McKesson policy is too weak because misconduct is defined as acts that are intentional, regardless of the degree of harm, and they maintain the existing policy sets too high a standard under which clawbacks may be applied. For instance, theft is not covered if the amount of money stolen by an exec does not materially harm the wholesaler.</blockquote>Stay tuned.

McKesson protest retaliation warehouse Teamsters protest retaliation at McKesson today

Teamsters protest McKesson's retaliation against Florida warehouse workers. The Teamsters protest of McKesson Corp.'s retaliation against its Lakeland, Fla., warehouse workers is taking place right now during the company's annual shareholder meeting …

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